Underground Financial War? Iran Uses Stablecoin to Collect Fees for Passage Through the Strait of Hormuz

On April 2, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Haider al-Gharibabadi publicly confirmed at a regular press briefing in Tehran that all large crude oil tankers (VLCC) transiting the Strait of Hormuz must pay transit fees to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and clearly ruled out the use of U.S. dollars for payment.
This statement has officially given shape to rumors circulating in the shipping industry—that Iran is no longer willing to use the strait as a traditional tool in geopolitical games, but instead is turning control of the strait into a financial test to counter the dominance of the U.S. dollar.
The rollout of the tolling mechanism has happened faster than the market expected.
Bloomberg, citing internal documents from the Navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported that the system was technically deployed by the end of March. Iran has only two options to receive the bridge toll: wire transfers in renminbi (yuan) or payment with USD stablecoin via a decentralized network.
Iran’s customs authority has set up a dedicated cryptocurrency trading window on Qeshm Island to ensure that the money is quickly converted into rials or transferred into overseas accounts after being credited to an account.
This arrangement is designed with extreme meticulousness.
Traditional international shipping payment methods rely on the SWIFT network and correspondent banking systems, and any transaction involving Iran would trigger secondary sanctions from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. However, the combination of cross-border payments in renminbi (yuan) and public blockchain networks creates a parallel channel that helps evade dollar scrutiny.
According to statistics from London-based shipping broker Braemar, at least two unidentified flag-of-convenience oil tankers have completed payments in renminbi (yuan) and safely transited the Strait of Hormuz by the end of March. The “Law on the Regulation of Transit through the Strait of Hormuz,” approved by Iran’s Parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission on March 30, further reinforces the domestic legal basis for this mechanism.
Notably, Iran also differentiates cargo-handling service fees for ships based on their geopolitical importance.
Citing sources close to the matter, Bloomberg reported on oil-pricing standards in the Strait of Hormuz, starting at $0.50 per barrel, and divided into five tiers based on different relationships with the countries involved.
The first pricing tier is a special rate for allied countries—China and Russia—at $0.5–0.7 per barrel. There is a special green shipping lane, and shipping is free if frequent reporting is provided.
The second tier includes friendly partners such as India and Pakistan, with prices ranging from $0.8 to $0.9 per barrel.
The third tier includes neutral countries, African countries, Southeast Asian countries, and Latin America, at $1 per barrel. These countries are required to declare in advance and are released after inspections to ensure they do not contain hostile assets.
The fourth tier includes high-risk countries that have close ties to the United States but do not take hostile actions against Iran, such as Japan, South Korea, and many countries in the European Union. The oil value for these countries is priced at $1.2–$1.5 per barrel. Iran will monitor these countries throughout the process, and the review period will be extended.
The fifth item includes the United States, Israel, and their allies—the countries barred from transiting through this area.
After a super-large tanker pays the toll, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issues a license code and provides route guidance. The vessel only needs to fly the flag of the country that signed the transit agreement, and in some cases, the ship’s official registration must be changed to that country. When the ship approaches the Strait of Hormuz, it must transmit the transit code via VHF radio, after which a patrol vessel will pick it up and escort it through the strait near the coastline, among a group of islands that industry experts call “Iran’s toll booth.”
This is the first time a sovereign state has integrated stablecoin into its strategic payment infrastructure.
Unlike El Salvador’s symbolic move to legalize Bitcoin, Iran’s choice is a compulsory one at commercial scale. The Strait of Hormuz handles 21% of global oil shipments, with dozens of vessels transiting every day.
If this mechanism continues to operate, an estimated more than $20 billion in stablecoins could flow through e-wallets controlled by Iran each year, forming a gray liquidity pool protected by state power.

The broader impact lies in spillover effects on maritime insurance and commercial finance. A group of International P&I Clubs (IG) issued internal warnings, pointing out that paying the IRGC could create risks of violating EU and UK sanctions compliance policies, leading to policy breaches. This forces shipowners into difficult trade-offs between transport economics and legal risk: routing around the Cape of Good Hope adds 15 days to the voyage and tens of thousands of dollars in fuel costs, while paying tolls with cryptocurrency risks having accounts frozen. Some commodity traders have started trying to restructure shipping routes through Pakistan intermediaries, and Islamabad has recently announced that it will allow 20 international oil tankers to fly the Pakistan flag, creating an offshore processing channel for Iran’s system.
Iran is not the only country doing this. Russia previously announced a similar tolling policy for the Northern Sea Route and has publicly considered adopting cryptocurrency payments of Logic tài chính kỹ thuật số, viewing geographic hubs as network nodes, thereby reshaping payment infrastructure for global energy trade.
When a cargo ship completes a USDT transaction via an on-chain protocol in the anchorage area of Qeshm Island, it is not only paying the toll, but also systematically removing the remaining architectural components of the Bretton Woods system.
The weaknesses of this experiment are no less clear. Because USDT/USDC are essentially pegged to the U.S. dollar and are monitored by OFAC, the risk lies in the shadow conglomerate established by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that could exchange it in bulk and “decentralize” it to obtain physical assets or fiat currency (rial). However, as long as Iran maintains a geographical monopoly over the Strait of Hormuz, this crypto-mediated financial war will continue to rewrite the rules of global commerce.